Andrzej Bursa

Andrzej Bursa

From children’s games and plays

When you become bored with everythingget yourself a little angel and a little old manthis is how you play:you trip the little old man so that he slams his mug into the groundthe little angel bows his head you give the little old man a pennythe little angel raises his headyou break the little old man’s glasses with a stonethe little angel bows his headyou offer your seat to the little old man on a tramthe little angel raises his headyou empty a potty over the little old man’s headthe little angel bows his headyou tell the little old man: “God bless you”the little angel raises his headand so onand then you go to sleepyou’ll dream about a little angel or a little devilif that’s a little angel – you winif a little devil – you loseif you don’t dream of eitherd r a w

Translated by Marta Klim

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Andrzej Bursa

(1932-1957) – a poet, prose writer, dramatist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the “cursed poets”. He spent his whole life in Krakow. From 1945 he attended the Jan Kochanowski Secondary School (today the Secondary School of General Education no. 3). In 1951, he began to study journalism and then Bulgarian philology at the Jagiellonian University. In 1952, he married a student of the Academy of Fine Arts - Ludwika Szemioth, with whom he had son Michał. From 1954 he worked as a journalist in Dziennik Polski.

He debuted with the poem “Głos w dyskusji o młodzieży” [“A Voice in the Discussion about Young People”) published in Życie Literackie in 1954. From 1956 he co-operated with Tadeusz Kantor’s Cricot 2 Theatre and the Piwnica pod Baranami cabaret. During the thaw period, he resigned from his membership with the Polish United Workers' Party and cancelled his registration in church books.

He is the author of works such as the narrative poem Luiza and the novel Zabicie ciotki [The Killing of an Aunt] (filmed in 1984). His poems combine sharp irony with poetic sophistication and often reveal and parody the fossilised use of language.

His debut poetic volume Kat bez maski [The Executioner Without a Mask] was rejected by the Wydawnictwo Literackie publishing house in 1957. Only after the poet’s death did the same publishing house release the collection Wiersze [Poems], which won an award at the Festival of Young Polish Poetry in Poznań.

He died in November 1957 as a result of a congenital heart disease, although there were rumours of his suicide. He is buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery.